Most of them are as fresh at a restaurants, anyway; they use seperate fish from the seafood dept. of the store.All the store sushis seem to vary depending on store; some just have better rice than others, which seems to make it for me...I really like the rainbow roll at the Shaw's at Packard's Corner (Allston), but the one in Fenway s**ks...

I think Whole Foods is a little expensive; you may as well go to a restaurant, and I find their rice strangely flavorless, as tho it's straight unseasoned rice...This is true of the Brookline one, Newton is marginally better...They're also really skimpy on fish....and the hamachi is always flavorless...

Don't bother with any of the Stop and Shops. Ever...Theirs is the only exception to the rule I've found. It's not made in store, and it's never fresh. Ugh.

Never had stop and shop sushi and I dont doubt its not fresh. But every stop and shop I have been in has a seperate section where the guys make it. i have seen them make both rice and cut fish, etc.

That little personal touch still is not enough to make me try it.

I have had supermarket sushi from Whole Foods. Its not bad, and hits the spot sometimes. Sometimes life is too busy or you just feel like getting your groceries and some sushi all in one place. But its no substitute for going out for sushi.

The long answer is that supermarket sushi is generally not bad. It is refrigerated after being made (to preserve freshness) which generally makes the rice drier and firmer, not to mention colder than you would expect in a restaurant. This changes the texture of the sushi and gives it a chewier, firmer mouth feel.

IMHO the fish quality is generally not as good as in a restaurant.

That being said, I must admit (as you may have guessed from the fact that I am replying to your question) that I do occasionally indulge in supermarket sushi. I find it a nice appetizer to indulge in when I am going to go staight from the supermarket to home to cook dinner, especially if I am hungry. It is also nice for picnics when you are going to refrigerate the sushi anyway and it comes nicely packaged for travel. Sushi, BTW, makes a great picnic item - delicious, self contained, easy to get and little mess.

a) A bottle of Ragu and a box of Prince's spaghetti is to home-made bolognese on fresh pasta

b) A bottle of Kraft Caesar's dressing poured on a head of romaine is to a Caesar's salad at Cardini's

c) A steak at Longhorn is to a steak at Peter Luger's

d) All of above

e) I don't know - This is a chowhound quiz, and chowhounds are too busy finding really amazing places to eat and the most unique foods around to waste time and calories on sushi made by people who can't speak two words of Japanese and were busy, just yesterday, wokking General Tso!

I don't know why I bothered - I guess just because they're Whole Foods - I went up to the counter and spoke some Japanese - I just got some empty and some guilty looks back... I bought a tray of salmon and tuna nigiri anyway, and blechhh... hardly any seasoning in the rice, which wasn't formed right - too loose (not enough vinegar or letting it cool too much before putting vinegar on will do that) - and the fish was certainly fresh, but just not of a good quality, nor very tasty. The tuna was probably not blue fin.

Only the Fresh Pond Whole Foods has ever had (raw) sushi I enjoyed and it seems to have changed in the past couple of years. I think like most of WF prepared foods, everything is plenty fresh (little risk of getting ill, at least), but most of it is also flavorless and unseasoned, especially the sad, sad rice. I will pick up their sushi for a quick snack or healthy-seeming nourishment, but I do not enjoy eating it - and I agree that 's gotten completely overpriced as well.

I would never buy (raw) sushi from Shaw's, Stop n Shop, and even Trader Joe's - I am never sure just how long ago it was made and how much preservative chemical is in it and around it (in the packaging and on those green plastic films) to keep it from smelling off as it probably should.

I work across the street from the Fresh Pond Whole Foods and bought some salmon sashimi recently that was terrible. So 'fishy' I couldn't even finish it. I learned my lesson - next time spring for Genki-Ya.

Most of the MA Whole Foods get their sushi thru the same company, a Chinese-run co. called Genji. It's all the same, and their rice is less than tender and delicious...The only independently owned sushi bar is in Newtnville; FABULOUS! Great fish, and delicious rice, as well as some creative, non-rice rolls (cucumber wrapped, etc.) for the no-carb gang..Interestingly, the new WF's that are opening are using a Hawaiian/California based sushi company called Hakku(?), or something similar to that. Made in-house, like the Genji ones, but the rice is miles better, the choices are more interesting, and the flavor is better...I've tried them 4 times so far...

S.Weymouth, (I know, a long way to go), Charlestown, Somerville, Lynnfield and Melrose...The S.Weymouth and Somerville stores may be a little on the slow side, so it wouldn't surprise me if they had less of a selection...

Ahh.....I see. I misunderstood your post..."all WF get their sushi from...". I read that as the sushi being prepared off-site and sent to the WF stores, rather than being prepped on-site by Genji people.

I find that Whole Foods sushi tends to be right in line with the quality you'd get at a Japanese restaurant.

Next, is the Chelmsford Stop and Shop (and only this S&S location as they sell different sushi than other stores as it is freshly made by a vendor!). The S&S sushi actually is the best thing going for them in prepared foods and I am surprised they haven't rolled this particular sushi out to other stores. And yes, they do beat their competitor's quality out!

And then I would go for MB, Shaw's, TJ's, Hannaford, and other S&S's sushi.

If you think WF sushi is "in line" with the quality at a restaurant, you're going to the wrong restaurants.The rice in supermarket sushi (as noted above) is always chilled, hard and dry, unless you happen to get it just made, and even then it's usually inferior to that of any half decent restaurant. Since the rice makes the nigiri (at least for me), no quality of fish can compensate for that, and the fish quality is usually not so high either.Does that stop me from having a spicy tuna roll once in a while... no

Absolutely agree. I have often had freshly made sushi at a variety of supermarkets and not once have any approximated what I get at even average Japanese restaurants. Both the rice and the fish are not up to snuff.